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Hoopla in the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn

With an official ribbon-cutting on Friday, Brooklyn celebrated the opening of a lavish sports and entertainment center featuring the Brooklyn Nets (formerly of New Jersey). This is generally good news for the borough and the city. It elevates what had been an underdeveloped area into a vibrant hub for basketball fans, shoppers and followers of such superstars as Jay-Z, who owns a club in the complex. For an older generation, the arrival of a major-league sports team may help fill the emptiness left by the departure of the Dodgers for Los Angeles in 1957.

Amid all the razzle-dazzle, however, it is worth reminding residents as well as the Barclays Center developer of promises made nine years ago. Forest City Ratner Companies, which is building the $4.9 billion project, originally sold the city on the arena plan because it would provide at least 2,250 affordable apartments, 8 acres of open space in the 22-acre project and 10,000 jobs.

Company officials said this week that they would, at some point, make good on those promises. The recession and numerous lawsuits from opponents have slowed down their progress, according to MaryAnne Gilmartin, an executive vice president of the company.

On Friday, Bruce Ratner, chairman of the development company, announced that he would break ground on the first of 14 residential buildings in December. The first building is supposed to offer 181 units of affordable rental apartments, which leaves more than 2,000 affordable units to be finished by 2031.

In some ways, it feels as though the developers got their dessert first — the splendid arena that will draw crowds and superstars starting on Friday night. Now for the meat and potatoes.

A version of this editorial appears in print on September 22, 2012, on Page A22 of the New York edition with the headline: Hoopla in the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. Today's Paper|Subscribe